Effects of fracture surface roughness and shear displacement on geometrical and hydraulic properties of three-dimensional crossed rock fracture models

Abstract

Abstract While shear-flow behavior through fractured media has been so far studied at single fracture scale, a numerical analysis of the shear effect on the hydraulic response of 3D crossed fracture model is presented. The analysis was based on a series of crossed fracture models, in which the effects of fracture surface roughness and shear displacement were considered. The rough fracture surfaces were generated using the modified successive random additions (SRA) algorithm. The shear displacement was applied on one fracture, and at the same time another fracture shifted along with the upper and lower surfaces of the sheared fracture. The simulation results reveal the development and variation of preferential flow paths through the model during the shear, accompanied by the change of the flow rate ratios between two flow planes at the outlet boundary. The average contact area accounts for approximately 5–27% of the fracture planes during shear, but the actual calculated flow area is about 38–55% of the fracture planes, which is much smaller than the noncontact area. The equivalent permeability will either increase or decrease as shear displacement increases from 0 to 4 mm, depending on the aperture distribution of intersection part between two fractures. When the shear displacement continuously increases by up to 20 mm, the equivalent permeability increases sharply first, and then keeps increasing with a lower gradient. The equivalent permeability of rough fractured model is about 26–80% of that calculated from the parallel plate model, and the equivalent permeability in the direction perpendicular to shear direction is approximately 1.31–3.67 times larger than that in the direction parallel to shear direction. These results can provide a fundamental understanding of fluid flow through crossed fracture model under shear.